


Through the Years

by scribblemyname



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Age Difference, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Mostly just lots of pining, Pining, Post-Canon, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 14:25:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12459651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/pseuds/scribblemyname
Summary: She stared at Mako as he threw back his drink. When he’d made detective, she’d told him how to impress her, by learning from his mistakes and becoming a good detective with not only good ideas but some idea of the right things to do with them. Now, here he was, detective again, half her age, and somehow he’d become the guy she could sit next to and feel like they’d been through the same wringer together.Here he was, impressing her.





	Through the Years

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dayadhvam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dayadhvam/gifts).



> I took you at your word about the UST thing, and I hope it works for you. I super enjoyed writing this for you. Happy FGE!

The horizon was grizzled metal, smoking piles of rubble as earthbenders lifted the fallen buildings of the city and cleared streets, a wreckage worthy of being the aftermath of a battle.

Lin Beifong stared out at it from her office. It was pretty amazing the police department was still standing, but it was and that had already been made functional again.

The door opened behind her. She glanced over and Mako shot her a grim smile as he handed over the offering he’d brought, a steaming cup of tea. “Morning, Chief.”

She took the tea, nodded, then looked back to her view of Republic City. “Well, congratulations on being a detective again.”

“What a way to get there,” he answered as he stepped into place beside her.

His tone struck her oddly and provoked a wry smile. He seemed to share her mixed feelings on how everything had come about. Wu growing into someone wise enough to create his own exit path from absolute monarchy was one of the few good things to come out of all of this, and while Lin wasn’t actually prepared to admit it out loud, at least not how much, she was looking forward to having Mako back. He’d grown a lot himself from when he’d joined up with the police and become someone she could always rely on.

It wasn’t just that either, but she wasn’t really used to feeling the sort of solidarity she’d once shared with Tenzin over being the heirs of legacies far bigger than anything they ever should have been able to live up to. Mako wasn’t the child of the Avatar, and he’d practically raised himself and his younger brother, but there was an odd feeling of familiarity there, for all Toph hadn’t been absent through her childhood.

And now he was the one she’d spent her world-saving, Avatar-supporting efforts beside and understood that feeling they all shared with her in the Republic City police department that even the rest of the Avatar crew did not. Lin and Mako wanted to get back to being _police,_ saving the day maybe, but not the world.

She turned back to her desk, pausing to put one hand on his shoulder. “Good to have you back with the Force.” With _her_ , not that she was saying that out loud either. Where he belonged.

* * *

_When President Raiko had asked her to bring her best detective along to the meeting, Lin had suspected then how it was going to go down. She’d grimaced and called Mako over anyway. He wasn’t going to get passed over or called_ less _than her best just because she didn’t want to share. Contrary to popular belief, Lin reserved her unprofessional behavior mostly for dealing with her own family. (Air Temple Island didn’t count. She’d been exaggerating at how much damage she’d done to practically her second home growing up.)_

_Something else Mako could share a gripe with her about when they were just talking._

_“I’m all yours, Chief.” Bright, shiny, eager. She’d been that once._

_She hmphed and waved him into step beside her. He really needed to stop saying that and putting ideas in her head._

_Raiko had certainly been surprised to see him. “I thought you’d bring a metalbender.”_

_“You asked for my best detective,” she answered tersely._

_Mako looked startled._

_“He’s fought with the Avatar, and he’s no slouch at firebending,” she added._

_Raiko conceded. “Yes, I remember that.” He sized up Mako again. “A protective detail. Prince Wu of the Earth Kingdom.”_

_Yeah, she’d called that one._

* * *

The whole unit took Mako out for drinks to welcome him back. Somehow, he still ended up coming over sometime halfway through the carousing to sit down next to Beifong. She noted him glance over the whole part of the windows still covered in debris from downtown’s playing host to a giant mecha spirit weapon.

“Chief.” He smiled briefly then seemed to focus entirely on his drink, second for the night, nursing it slowly.

“Drink up,” she advised him, draining her own glass. “There’s plenty to do tomorrow, but you’re not on first shift.”

“Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

His own version of leading up to something he didn’t think she’d like to hear. She paused and waited for him to spit it out.

“It’s been a while since I had anything interesting to do,” he said, and it sounded like a guilty admission.

She snorted. “What are you whining about? You did just help save the city.”

“I also just nearly let Wu get kidnapped because I wasn’t really paying attention.”

So this was some potentially justified jitters about being rusty. Lin shrugged anyway. “Look, Mako. You screwed up. Wasn’t the first time, won’t be the last. Come in tomorrow, work hard like you always do, and you’ll be fine.”

He stared at her for a moment, then nodded. “Right.”

She slapped him easily on the back of his shoulder. “And don’t come crying to me.”

Mako laughed, tension finally well and truly broken. She could remember her own mother saying as much, go hug a tree, and she’d given up calling her mother anything but Chief a long time ago. This wasn’t quite the same though.

She stared at Mako as he threw back his drink. When he’d made detective, she’d told him how to impress her, by learning from his mistakes and becoming a good detective with not only good ideas but some idea of the right things to do with them. Now, here he was, detective again, half her age, and somehow he’d become the guy she could sit next to and feel like they’d been through the same wringer together.

Here he was, impressing her.

“You’ll be fine.”

“Right,” he said again, but this time it felt like he believed her.

* * *

He kept on with bringing the good ideas, paying attention where other people would write the little things off.

_“Chief, I think that witness was lying. He said he was across the street when he saw what happened, but there was a car parked there that would’ve blocked his view.”_

_“Chief, I was filing the reports on the robberies over the south district, and not one of them was caught on the new security cameras down there. It might be someone who knows where we put them.”_

_“Chief–”_

_“Come on in, Mako.”_

Lin might have wondered in the first year whether he’d ever grow up from the rookie beat cop he once was, but by now, he was the one she relied on the most. It only made sense as the years started rolling by that he stopped having to bring her findings. She took to dragging him into meetings and just plain asking.

* * *

“What are you doing in here so late?” she demanded. It was past dark, several hours past, and there was always work in the morning, early enough she’d started hassling a certain detective about getting some actual sleep so he’d be fresh for it.

“Still just trying to impress you,” he said with that faint cocky lilt he still put on sometimes.

She gave him a skeptical raised brow and crossed her arms. “You’d impress me more by following orders.”

She ignored the real implication niggling at her. What exactly did he mean by trying to impress her when she was more and more certain neither of them thought of her as filling any sort of parental stand-in role. She wasn’t cut out for that anyway.

But Mako just shot her back his own skeptical look, eyebrows drawing together sharply. “That’s not how I remembered it,” he said slowly.

And he wasn’t wrong, but she wasn’t backing down on it. “I’m leaving the building, so you’re leaving the building.”

“You want me to walk you home?” he asked with a remarkably straight face.

“I can walk myself home, and you don’t need a babysitter either.” She jerked her head and he finally sighed and got up from the deskful of paperwork he was drowning in.

She walked him as far as the front door of the office and ignored the way he stared after her as she walked away.

* * *

It wasn’t the end of a long day or a long week or even year. It had been a long decade, Lin Beifong decided as she stared out her office window at Republic City. Still her city. She hadn’t walked early like her mother, Toph. But then, Lin had avoided the children that were almost Toph’s undoing. She’d have been a terrible mother, hadn’t even been that good of a mentor, and had never wanted to be.

The object of her potential mentorship– _she’d told him when he made detective who to bother with his questions and who to imitate, but also not to bother her_ –poked his head in the door with a light rap of his knuckles on the wood. “Hey, Chief, I was wondering if you wanted to go out for drinks.”

She turned and looked at him properly. “You already finished up the hospital case?” she asked, disbelief coloring her voice.

Mako just grinned. “Wrapped and in the bag. Even filed the paperwork. Everyone else not on shift already took off for the night. Thought I’d head down to The Dancing Dragon.”

Not an unusual place for cops when they knocked off, but generally Lin only went down when there were a few more cops along and she wasn’t accustomed to being otherwise asked. “What exactly are you asking me, Detective?” she said bluntly.

The grin disappeared behind his neutral, I’m all yours, Chief face, the one that gave her some hope he could act professional when it was called for and also irritated her to no end because he was still putting ideas in her head. “Whatever you want me to be asking.”

She stared at him for a long moment, brought out the wry reminder, “It’s highly inappropriate to proposition your boss.”

“I would never. I am the epitome of propriety.” He kept that straight face, dramatic hand on his chest notwithstanding, and she couldn’t help but feel they were both doing this dance, trying to figure out if it was even safe to ask.

She snorted in good humor and watched his shoulders relax. “You were never that, Mako. These better be good drinks you’re offering me,” she said warningly as she pulled on her coat.

“Only the best for the chief.”

“Got that right.”

He laughed softly. She didn’t let on that she liked the sound, but her lips quirked upward in the tiniest smile.

* * *

By the end of the evening, she was wondering to herself why she’d waited so long to do anything about this. Then she practically snorted her drink. Because he was her direct report was why, even if he’d paused and glanced at her questioningly.

“You know I didn’t really wreck Air Temple Island,” she commented.

Mako looked surprised, then chuckled. “I suppose not. It did kind of make me feel better.”

Which had been the point at the time. Make light of the breakup for a moment, help him through the shock before it quite hit home. Lin didn’t really care about other people’s feelings, but she cared about Mako’s, her officers’, the Force she’d made her family.

It stood to reason the first time she thought about doing this again, it’d be someone who knew police and cared about her work as much as she did.

“Whatever I want?”

He looked up sharply, genuinely surprised. “What? You’re taking me up on that?” 

Lin had been mulling the idea over for years, and all the reasons why it was a bad idea. “Aren’t you a little young to be asking me?”

“Last I checked, you’re still the most formidable woman on the Force, and no one would be dumb enough to call you old.”

She just huffed at him in exasperation. “Shut up and do something useful with that mouth of yours instead.”

He laughed and it crinkled the corners of his eyes. She couldn’t fool herself that he was a boy anymore. “Yes, Chief.” 

It reminded her just a little too much of their roles. She took his jaw and put his mouth exactly where she wanted.


End file.
